While 24/7 Wall St. looks through dozens of analyst upgrades and downgrades each day of the week, there are always some research reports which sneak through the cracks. There were three key technology upgrades from Wednesday which we would have liked to have covered in our morning research recap, and one of the reports we did cover was later expanded upon. On a day where the broad market is lower, these were all up on the trading day and the research reports seem to be key drivers here.
Included with each of the four calls was the research summary itself, the price target if available, and historical trading data. Additional color was added on each call as well.
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is perhaps the media industry’s technology leader tracking and measuring media metrics and analytics for a digitally moving world. Oppenheimer likes what it sees after earnings — margin improvements continuing and the firm expects comScore to aggressively repurchase shares under its $150 million buyback plan. The firm raised its rating to Outperform from Perform and gave a $58 price target. This was versus a $48.50 prior close, and shares were up almost 3% at $49.75 in mid-Wednesday trading.
QLogic Corp. (NASDAQ: QLGC) was raised to Buy at Argus on Wednesday morning, and the $19 price target compared with a prior closing price of $14.39. Argus said that the upgrade was based upon market share gains, cash flow growth and margin expansion. After acquiring Ethernet assets from Brocade and Broadcom, these have moved from suppressed gross margin to a strong growth opportunity. Also noted was that QLogic also gained share in the Fibre Channel connectivity space and that shares now appear historically attractive. QLogic shares were up almost 2% at $14.65 in mid-afternoon trading, with a consensus price target of $16.42 and a 52-week range of $8.70 to $15.45.
Super Micro Computer, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMCI) is into high performance server solutions, and is therefore not a household name to many tech investors. Roth Capital started coverage with a Buy rating and assigned a $50 price target in the call. Super Micro has a 52-week range of $17.26 to $42.00, and it has a consensus analyst price target of $45.80. With the prior highest price target being $48 for the stock, this call makes Roth the highest analyst price target of all — and the lowest of the few analysts with a price target is still at $43 on this stock. Super Micro shares were up 2.5% at $29.80 in mid-afternoon trading on Wednesday.
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Yandex N.V. (NASDAQ: YNDX) is often called the “Google of Russia” by investors. So if it is in Russia, then it has to be bad, right? Not according to UBS. The firm raised shares to Buy from Neutral on Wednesday. One of the surprise comments was an improving environment on the macro economic scale in Russia. Could it be? Yandex shares were up almost 2% at $19.76 in mid-afternoon trading on Wednesday. Its 52-week range is $13.90 to $35.90. With earnings last week, Yandex did project that second quarter revenues would be up by 9% to 12%.
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